


it's nothing you thought of yourself

by tamaraface



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Angst, Canon Queer Character, Character Study, F/F, Getting Together, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 08:52:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3350699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamaraface/pseuds/tamaraface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end was this: Lexa was going to be a Jaeger pilot and she was going to be fucking great at it.</p><p>No, the surprises come later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's nothing you thought of yourself

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise! It's the Pacific Rim AU no one wanted or asked for! Just kidding, I wanted it. You're welcome. Title credit to a line in "Another Radio Song" by Okkervil River. Un-beta'd, all mistakes are mine.

Lexa isn’t surprised when the acceptance letter comes. She’d applied to the Jaeger Academy Pilot Program with every certainty she’d get in. The paperwork was a formality. Applications, evaluations, recommendations, approvals, all of it. The training, even, was a matter of course; a means to end, inevitable. The end was this: Lexa was going to be a Jaeger pilot and she was going to be fucking great at it.

No, the surprises come later.

\--

When she gets asked why she joined the academy; why she wants this; why she’s fought tooth and nail; why she’s sweated, cried, and bled for it—because you will get asked, you don’t make it as far as Lexa has without people wheedling, thinking you owe them answers—Lexa will say it’s because she loves her country. She will say it’s because she loves her people, because she hates Kaiju and she remembers a world before them, wants to help bring about that world again.

It’s bullshit. 

Obviously.

\--

Lexa… doesn’t exactly excel at Drift sync testing. There is no room for practice, nothing to study. It is a pass/fail scenario, and failure does not become her.

Her marks in every other area are excellent. She exceeds expectations in planning and logistics. She is well above the curve in fitness and combat. It is little consolation. Lexa doesn’t need a class ranking or an instructor’s praise to tell her that is good at outsmarting people, or incapacitating them. 

Compatibility, she learns, is not something you can teach. You cannot learn to match someone else’s pulse, to be the collective heart in the chest of a giant machine. There is no how-to on becoming one mind, one consciousness; no Idiot’s Guide to fitting your whole self inside someone else. 

Despite this, despite what she considers to be abject and ruinous failure, Lexa is not booted from the program. It is luck, maybe, that Lexa’s CO has taken a shine to her. Lucky, that her Commander—Anya—has faith where Lexa has only stubborn and ruthless will. 

There is a fresh batch of new recruits, promising, by the looks of them. When they’re done running drills in the gym, when Lexa’s muscles ache and she is just shy of catching her breath, Anya claps Lexa hard on the shoulder. 

She says, “Saddle up, rookie.” Her smile is less that and more a baring of teeth. “We’ve got you a co-pilot.”

Lexa breathes.

\--

Costia is…

Lexa doesn’t have words for what Costia is.

But then, she doesn’t need them in the Drift.

\--

The first surprise is this: 

_Costia_

And it is everything and nothing Lexa thought it would be. It is being open, being _cracked_ open like a shell; _flayed_ down to her innermost parts. It is all the twisted, bloody parts of her, and it is all the shining pieces below that. 

Costia is the sun. Bright and unforgiving, but welcome and illuminating. She shines light on everything Lexa is, even and especially the broken bits Lexa’s carefully hidden in the shadows.

The second surprise is this: that light

winking out.

\--

Here is the truth: Lexa does love her country, and she does love her people, and she does hate Kaiju, but Lexa doesn’t remember what the world was like before.

She grew up in the forest. She lived in the wood, in the trees, where the air smelled like pine, and sap, and cold. Never salt, never ocean. She’d never felt the earth rumble beneath her feet with the distant step of Kaiju. She’d never cowered at the sound of a mighty beast bellowing its intent across the open bay. She hadn’t ever even been to the coast when her squad had rolled up on the Pacific shore at week two of Boot Camp.

No. Lexa had been a warrior without a quest. An avenger without a vendetta. It was convenient, an outlet. She’d needed a reason and Kaiju were exactly that. They gave her cause. The Jaeger gave her means. The Academy gave her ability. 

It was written, Lexa was fairly sure, that some were born to greatness, while others achieved it. Others still, had greatness thrust upon them. However she’d come upon it, Lexa had worn the mantle well. 

She had been great. She and Costia—

They—

\--

“Well, well,” the voice was grating. Lexa fought back a grimace, but only just. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“Raven,” Lexa gritted out. Her teeth where clenched nearly as tight as her fists. Raven, hair slicked back in a messy ponytail and one hip cocked like she owned the Shatterdome and everyone in it, smirked. “You’re not dead.”

Beside her, a guy in need of a haircut snorts and tries to hide it behind a cough. Raven quirks an eyebrow like it’s an answer and stares at Lexa. A beat passes. Two. 

Lexa doesn’t blink. Neither does Raven.

“Alive and kicking,” Raven says. It’s a dare. Lexa does not look down to where Raven has one leg bracketed in a sleek, if homemade, metal brace. “Mostly.”

Something cracks the veneer of Lexa’s face and it’s almost a smile, but not quite.

“Good to see you,” Lexa says, and means it. 

If she or Raven were the hugging type, this is where they’d go in. But, officially, they are not. PDA was never exactly their strong suit, and this wasn’t exactly a special occasion. Lexa spares a curt nod and turns away to find who she came looking for. She and Raven were sort of friends once. That lifetime is not this one.

Across the hangar, gearing up for an impassioned speech, Chancellor Griffin is waiting.

\--

The Chancellor is earnest and capable and a bit too green for Lexa’s tastes, but she likes her anyway. She is forthright in a way that Lexa appreciates, but a little more ingenuous than Lexa’s fit to deal with. It takes a deliberate effort for Lexa not to roll her eyes at least three different theatrical pauses in Abby Griffin’s pep talks.

Lexa feels old, watching a woman who could be her mother speaking with the naiveté of a private yet to see their first battle. Lexa’s seen more in her twenty-some years than Abby’s seen in the last two as Chancellor, likely more than the forty-odd before that. It doesn’t matter, Lexa tells herself. That isn’t what she’s here for.

She waits until the Chancellor is finished _inspiring the troops_. Lexa waits, jaw working, fists balled at her sides.

\--

After… what happened. With Costia. When Lexa is able to think about it without screaming, she still does everything she can to avoid thinking about it. She doesn’t scream anymore, sure, but that’s only because she’s learned to bite her tongue. 

It was impressive, objectively, that Lexa made it back to shore after it happened. Theoretically, hypothetically, Lexa recognizes that it was an unimaginable feat for her to have kept the Jaeger going, to have lead it back to land all on her own, with Costia on the other side of the link, but not. Just Lexa on the right and a body where Costia had been, helmet still strapped to nothing, on the left. 

Impressive.

That is why she’s here now. Because this new Chancellor sees potential where Lexa sees only weakness. Yes, it took everything Lexa had to get back to the shore that day. If that sort of desperation is commendable, then certainly; impressive. 

But Lexa did not slog through that raucous stretch of ocean out of obligation. It was not because she swore some fealty to a righteous cause. She took an oath when she joined the academy to protect the human race from a great and vast threat that had risen like the kraken from the depths of every sea. That is not why Lexa led a colossal robot one leg at a time out of a laden gulf, with kaiju blood dripping down her Jaeger’s side. 

She did it because she was afraid. If Lexa was half as brave as the world seemed to think she was, she would’ve stayed and fought and drowned. She’d be at the bottom of the ocean with Costia; dead, but whole.

\--

“This is you,” Clarke says. She gestures at the space behind Lexa where there is, presumably, a door. Lexa doesn’t turn to look; she focuses instead on Clarke’s face, the furrow between her brows. “I’m over here if you need anything.”

Clarke hooks a thumb behind her, points at a door identical to the one that is surely behind Lexa. The barracks are standard issue, all the same. Lexa says nothing, mouth set in a firm line as Clarke, the Chancellor’s daughter, looks back at her. It’s unnerving, awkward, Lexa is sure. She does it anyway.

“ ‘Kay, so, goodnight,” Clarke mutters, and rounds on her heel. Lexa watches her retreating back and turns to her own bunk only after Clarke disappears into hers.

Whatever similarity she sees, whatever familiarity she feels looking at Clarke, Lexa tamps it down. She snuffs it out like a cigarette butt under the heel of her boot.

\--

“Again,” Abby says.

Lexa exhales sharply through her nose and spares a disparaging glance toward her Commanding Officer. It’s the most observable dissent she'll allow herself, but the fierce twist of her wrapped hands around her bo staff are as dead a giveaway as if she was wringing the Chancellor’s own neck.

Lexa turns to the unfortunate recruit that has landed himself her next sparring partner and bounces a bit on the balls of her feet. She’d meant to limber herself up a little, but the kid looks ready to wet himself, like she’d just unsheathed a machete. 

“On my count,” Abby calls. Her voice resonates and Lexa focuses on it instead of the stare she can feel coming from Clarke, her eyes like two pinpricks between Lexa’s shoulder blades. “Three, two—”

The kid strikes prematurely and Lexa sees it coming. He leads with his left and Lexa sidesteps right, dropping low to swing a swift kick to the back of his knees. The boy buckles like dry wood under a splitting axe and Lexa might feel bad if she were still capable of feeling bad for little boys playing at grown up games.

“—One.”

Lexa can feel the Chancellor’s disappointment from where she stands. It weighs down her voice, that solitary syllable, and settles over Lexa’s shoulders like an albatross. As if she’d asked for this. As if Lexa had set herself up with a child eager to prove something. Lexa had been clear when she said she’d come back, and adamant when she said she didn’t want a partner.

Lexa doesn’t repeat herself. She holds her head high as she exits the dojo. She hears nothing but the soft slap of her bare feet on the mats, feels nothing but the soft weight of Clarke’s gaze on her back.

\--

“This is the Ark,” Clarke tells her. Her voice is low, reverent. It makes everything in Lexa slow, and she hates it.

Clarke isn’t looking at her. She’s looking at a war-torn Jaeger that’s seen better days and she reaches out and lays a hand on it like there’s something to feel: a pulse, a heartbeat.

Lexa feels her own face twist up into something ugly, something fierce and expectant. She doesn’t know how to greet something with potential for greatness; she’s forgotten how to hope for something more, something better.

She looks at Clarke, her hand still small against a cable in a tendon in an arm of the Ark. Clarke’s eyes are fixed somewhere around the Jaeger’s face, and Lexa finds herself reaching out. Lexa sees her hand almost the same moment that Clarke does and drops it when Clarke turns to look at her.

An apology sticks in Lexa’s throat, and she looks at her own feet, and her face burns. She can’t say anything because her tongue feels heavy and she doesn’t trust herself to speak, she can barely swallow past the growing lump in her throat because Clarke smiles and something inside Lexa breaks, _shatters_.

“I think we could ride the Ark, me and you,” Clarke says. She says it to Lexa’s forehead, because they’re only inches apart now, but Lexa can’t quite bring herself to look up and meet Clarke’s eyes. It’s taking everything she has just to keep standing there, to breathe.

“Tomorrow?” Clarke phrases it like a question. It’s a kindness, gives Lexa the illusion of choice. 

“Yeah,” Lexa manages. “ _Yes_.”

\--

“ _Ark_ , Pilot One, Online,” Clarke says. Lexa glances over and watches as Clarke flips seamlessly through the pre-flight check, the safety check, and the mission parameters. She’s a natural. She was _born_ for this. It’s reflex, a knee-jerk response when Clarke finishes and Lexa steps in—

“ _Ark_ , Pilot Two, Online.”

There is a vague, electronic whir that signals Drift and Departure. This may only be a simulation now, but suddenly it’s more real than anything Lexa’s ever known. She’s terrified, more so now after having lost a co-pilot, after having lost Costia, that stepping into the Drift now was bigger than just a trial run. It was a precursor to everything that would come next, all the wrenching, invasive, renting shock that went along with knowing the deepest, truest parts of someone. She wasn't sure she could do it again, didn't know if she could survive it.

Lexa’s stomach flips in nervous anticipation, her heart a sledgehammer against her ribs. Lexa turns slowly at the anxiety, fear, memories, that rise like bile in her throat. Her grip is white-knuckled inside her gloves to keep herself from reaching out, from reaching left. Left, where Clarke is waiting, smile ready; a balm for every ache Lexa’s felt since this began. Then Lexa feels a calm not her own roll in, like waves lapping at the shore, when they finally sync. And it’s okay. All of it, everything, okay.

**Author's Note:**

> moreimportantthings on tumblr.


End file.
